May 25, 2003
                   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                   MEDIA CONTACT: Pamela Higgins
                   (410) 516-8337
                   pamela.higgins@jhu.edu

EMERSON'S LEGACY IN BALTIMORE

Ralph Waldo Emerson's first public appearance in Baltimore was in 1819, when he gave a sermon at the First Unitarian Church at Franklin and Charles streets. He returned many times during the next 50 years, participating in lectures sponsored by the Baltimore Mercantile Library Association and the Peabody Institute.  His last lecture at the Peabody, "Resources and Inspiration," was attended by poets Walt Whitman and John Burroughs.
 
This summer, the Johns Hopkins University will commemorate Emerson's Baltimore legacy in an exhibit, "Emerson Lectures in Baltimore," which will showcase some of Emerson's letters and lectures, as well as photographs, woodcuts and lithographs of 19th-century architecture that Emerson admired in Baltimore. The exhibit will run from June 2 through Sept. 30 at the Eisenhower Library on the Hopkins Homewood campus, Charles and 34th streets. In addition, Larzer Ziff, a Hopkins professor of English, will lecture on Emerson Sept. 12 at Gilman Hall.

The Sheridan Libraries encompass the Milton S. Eisenhower Library and its collections at the Hutzler Reading Room, Garrett Library and the George Peabody Library.

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